The Cottage Smallholder

  Yesterday I popped into Notcutts looking for Rockdust. They didn’t stock it. In fact most of their shop was packed with Christmas things. They did have the jute sacks that Penny mentioned on my Autumn Leaves post – knocked down to four for a fiver. A bargain. We are composting like mad. We have the Read More »

  When the weather starts to get chilly I have a longing for a really good Toad-in-the-Hole. Not the rather chewy offering that I munched as a child but a light and puffy one. A dish that would have Danny pleading for more rather than the slightly suspicious response, “I don’t think that I’ve ever Read More »

  This summer I stopped at the Marshalls stand at Hampton Court flower show and bought a selection of salad, radish, spring onion and stir fry leaves for a fiver. The overall saving was about £12 and I’m a bit of a sucker for a bargain. The seeds have been sown every few weeks and Read More »

Quinces are such a useful fruit but if you don’t own a quince tree they can be hard to find. A generous lady who lives in Over (Cambridgeshire) has a glut of quinces and has offered our readers quinces in return for a small donation to the Over Day Centre. If you are interested email Read More »

  I spent a lot of the weekend searching for cloches on the internet. I’ve sown peas and carrots for an early crop in the spring and even though we have a lot of cloches I need the smaller ones to protect salad and stir fry leaves. I did find some ‘cheap’ fleece cloches for Read More »

  As I go to bed very early I tend to wake up earlier too. Now the clocks have gone back it’s about 05:00 when I creep downstairs to make a giant mug of tea. Back in bed with the dogs I fire up the laptop and potter onto the blog to see what’s happened Read More »

  “Don’t you just love the look of abject fear that appears on the faces of shop girls or fellow shoppers, when they ask if you are making a lantern for Hallow’een and you reply that you are, in fact, going to eat it!”  Wrote my friend Pamela. “I made soup with half of mine Read More »

  Following the excitement of last weeks visitor and staying up for two whole days without a rest, I feel completely shattered today and spent most of the day in bed. The laptop was working overtime as I was researching buying vegetable seeds on the internet and comparing prices. This was prompted by finding a Read More »

  We had someone special coming for supper last night and as it was going to be a busy day I decided to cook everything in advance except the vegetables. I managed to get my hands on a wild rabbit and made a bone in casserole in the slow cooker the day before. I used Read More »

  I’m going to throw fruit nets over our vegetable borders next year when the leaves begin to fall. I spent most of the afternoon raking up leaves and testing out my new leaf collectors. They are really good for picking up leaves on the paths. In fact it’s quite fun seeing how many you Read More »